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The Clock that Had, no Hands 

and Nineteen other Essays 
About Advertising 

By Herbert Kaufman 





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Book tL3 

Copyright^? 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The Clock that Had 
no Hands 



The Clock that Had 
no Hands 

And Nineteen Other Essays 
About Advertising 

By 

Herbert Kaufman 




New York 
George H. Doran Company 






COPYRIGHT, I908 
BY THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE 

COPYRIGHT, 1912 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



THE •PLIMPTON* PRESS 
[W • D *o] 

NORWOOD.MASS«U'S'A 



©CI.A330786 



Contents 

PAGE 

The Clock that Had no Hands ... i 

The Cannon that Modernized Japan . 7 

The Tailor who Paid too Much ... 13 

The Man who Retreats before His Defeat 19 

The Dollar that Can't be Spent . . 25 

The Pass of Thermopylae 31 

The Perambulating Showcase .... 37 

How Alexander Untied the Knot . . 43 

If It Fits You, Wear this Cap ... 49 

You Must Irrigate Your Neighborhood 55 

Cato's Follow-up System 61 

How to Write Retail Advertising Copy 67 
The Difference between Amusing and 

Convincing 75 

Some Don'ts when You Do Advertise . 79 

The Doctor whose Patients Hang On . 85 

The Horse that Drew the Load ... 91 

The Cellar Hole and the Sewer Hole 97 

The Neighborhood of Your Advertising 103 

The Mistake of the Big Steak . . . 109 

The Omelette Souffle 113 



"The Clock that Had 
no Hands 



The Clock that Had 
no Hands 



NEWSPAPER advertising is to busi- 
ness, what hands are to a clock. It 
is a direct and certain means of 
letting the public know what you are doing. 
In these days of intense and vigilant com- 
mercial contest, a dealer who does not ad- 
vertise is like a clock that has no hands. He 
has no way of recording his movements. He 
can no more expect a twentieth century 
success with nineteenth century methods, 
than he can wear the same sized shoes as 
a man, which fitted him in his boyhood. 

His father and mother were content with 
neighborhood shops and bobtail cars ; noth- 
ing better could be had in their day. They 
were accustomed to seek the merchant in- 
stead of being sought by him. They dealt 
"around the corner" in one-story shops 



4 The Clock that Had no Hands 

which depended upon the immediate friends 
of the dealer for support. So long as the 
city was made up of such neighborhood 
units, each with a full outfit of butchers, 
bakers, clothiers, jewelers, furniture dealers 
and shoemakers, it was possible for the 
proprietors of these little establishments 
to exist and make a profit. 

But as population increased, transit facili- 
ties spread, sections became specialized, 
block after block was entirely devoted to 
stores, and mile after mile became solely 
occupied by homes. 

The purchaser and the storekeeper grew 
farther and farther apart. It was necessary 
for the merchant to find a substitute for 
his direct personality, which no longer served 
to draw customers to his door. He had to 
have a bond between the commercial center 
and the home center. Rapid transit elimi- 
nated distance but advertising was necessary 
to inform people where he was located and 
what he had to sell. It was a natural out- 
growth of changed conditions — the begin- 
ning of a new era in trade which no longer 
relied upon personal acquaintance for success. 



The Clock that Had no Hands 5 

Something more wonderful than the 
fabled philosopher's stone came into being, 
and the beginnings of fortunes which would 
pass the hundred million mark and place 
tradesmen s daughters upon Oriental thrones 
grew from this new force. Within fifty 
years it has become as vital to industry as 
steam to commerce. 

Advertising is not a luxury nor a debatable 
policy. It has proven its case. Its record 
is traced in the skylines of cities where a 
hundred towering buildings stand as a 
lesson of reproach to the men who had the 
opportunity but not the foresight, and furnish 
a constant inspiration to the young merchant 
at the threshold of his career. 



"The Cannon that Modernized 
jfapan 



The Cannon that 
Modernized Japan 

BUSINESS is no longer a man to man 
contact, in which the seller and the 
buyer establish a 'personal bond, any 
more than battle is a hand-to-hand grapple 
wherein bone and muscle and sinew decide 
the outcome. Trade as well as war has 
changed aspect — both are now j ought at long 
range. 

Just as a present day army of heroes 
would have no opportunity to display the 
individual valor of its members, just so 
a merchant who counts upon his direct 
acquaintanceship for success, is a relic of 
the past — a business dodo. 

Japan changed her policy of exclusion to 
foreigners, after a fleet of warships battered 
down the Satsuma fortifications. The 
Samurai, who had hitherto considered their 



io Cannon that Modernized yapan 

blades and bows efficient, discovered that 
one cannon was mightier than all the swords 
in creation — if they could not get near enough 
to use them. Japan profited by the lesson. 
She did not wait until further ramparts were 
pounded to pieces but was satisfied with her 
one experience and proceeded to modernize 
her methods. 

The merchant who doesn't advertise is 
pretty much in the same position as that 
in which Japan stood when her eyes were 
opened to the fact that times had changed. 
The long range publicity of a competitor 
will as surely destroy his business as the 
cannon of the foreigners crumbled the walls 
of Satsuma. Unless you take the lesson to 
heart, unless you realize the importance of 
advertising, not only as a means of extend- 
ing your business but for defending it as 
well, you must be prepared to face the con- 
sequences of a folly as great as that of a 
duelist who expects to survive in a contest 
in which his adversary bears a sword twice 
the length of his own. 

Don't think that it's too late to begin be- 
cause there are so many stores which have 



Cannon that Modernized "Japan 11 

had the advantage of years of cumulative 
advertising. The city is growing. It will 
grow even more next year. It needs in- 
creased trading facilities just as it's hungry 
for new neighborhoods. 

But it will never again support neighbor- 
hood stores. Newspaper advertising has 
reduced the value of being locally prom- 
inent, and five cent street car fares have 
cut out the advantage of being "around 
the corner." A store five miles away, can 
reach out through the columns of the daily 
newspaper and draw your next door neigh- 
bor to its aisles, while you sit by and see the 
people on your own block enticed away, 
without your being able to retaliate or 
secure new customers to take their place. 

It is not a question of your ability to 
stand the cost of advertising but of being 
able to survive without it. The thing you 
have to consider is not only an extension 
of your business but of holding what you 
already have. 

Advertising is an investment, the cost of 
which is in the same proportion to its returns 
as seeds are to the harvest. And it is just as 



12 Cannon that Modernized yapan 

preposterous for you to consider publicity 
as an expense, as it would be for a farmer 
to hesitate over purchasing a fertilizer, if he 
discovered that he could profitably increase 
his crops by employing it. 



The Tailor who Paid 
too Much 



The Tailor who Paid 
too Much 



1WAS buying a cigar last week when a 
man dropped into the shop and after 
making a purchase told the proprietor 
that he had started a clothes shop around 
the corner and quoted him prices, with the 
assurance of best garments and terms. 

After he left the cigar man turned to me 
and said: 

"Enterprising fellow, that, he'll get 
along. " 

"But he wont," I replied, "and, further- 
more, I'll wager you that he hasn't the sort 
of clothes shop that will enable him to. " 

"What made you think that?" queried 
the man behind the counter. 

"His theories are wrong," I explained; 
"he's relying upon word of mouth publicity 
to build up his business and he can't inter- 



16 Tailor who Paid too Much 



view enough individuals to compete with a 
merchant, who has sense enough to say the 
same things he told you, to a hundred 
thousand men, while he is telling it to one. 
Besides, his method of advertising is too ex- 
pensive. Suppose he sees a hundred persons 
every day. First of all, he is robbing his 
business of its necessary direction and be- 
sides, he is spending too much to reach every 
man he solicits. " 

"I don't quite follow you." 

"Well, as the proprietor of a clothes shop 
his own time is so valuable that I am very 
conservative in my estimate when I put 
the cost of his soliciting at five cents a head. 

"Now, if he were really able and clever 
he would discover that he can talk to hun- 
dreds of thousands of people at a tenth of 
a cent per individual. There is not a news- 
paper in town the advertising rate of which 
is $1.00 per thousand circulation, for a space 
big enough in which to display what he said 
to you." 

"I never looked at it that way," said the 
cigar man. 

It's only "the man who hasnt looked at 



Tailor who Paid too Much ij 

it that way" who hesitates for an instant 
over the advisability and profitableness of 
newspaper publicity. 

Newspaper advertising is the cheapest 
channel of communication ever established 
by man. A thousand letters with one-cent 
stamps, will easily cost fifteen dollars and 
not one envelope in ten will be opened be- 
cause the very postage is an invitation to the 
wastebasket. 

If there were anything cheaper rest as- 
sured that the greatest merchants in 
America would not spend individual sums 
ranging up to half a million dollars a year 
and over, upon this form of attracting trade. 



'The Man who Retreats 
before His Defeat 



The Man who 

Retreats before His 

Defeat 



ADVERTISING isn't magic. There 
is no element of the black art about 
it. In its best and highest form it 
is plain talk, sane talk — selling talk. Its 
results are in proportion to the merit of the 
subject advertised and the ability with 
which the advertising is done. 

There are two great obstacles to advertis- 
ing profit, and both of them arise from 
ignorance of the real functions and workings 
of publicity. 

The first is to advertise promises which 
will not be fulfilled, — because all that ad- 
vertising can do when it accomplishes most, 
is to influence the reader to investigate your 
claims. 



22 The Man who Retreats 

If you promise the earth and deliver the 
moon, advertising will not pay you. 

If you bring men and women to your 
store on pretense and fail to make good, 
advertising will have harmed you, because 
it has only drawn attention to the fact that 
you are to be avoided. 

It is as unjust to charge advertising with 
failure under these conditions, as it would be 
for your neighbor to rob a bank and make 
you responsible for his misdeed. In brief, 
advertised dishonesty is even more profitless 
than unexploited deception. 

The other great error in advertising is to 
expect more out of advertising than there 
is in it. 

Advertising is seed which a merchant plants 
in the confidence of the community. He must 
allow time for it to grow. Every successful 
advertiser has to be patient. The time that 
it takes to arrive at results rests entirely 
with the ability and determination de- 
voted to the work. But you cannot turn 
back when you have traveled half way and 
declare that the path is wrong. 

You can't advertise for a week, and be- 



The Man who Retreats 23 

cause your store isn't crowded, say it hasn't 
paid you. It takes a certain period to 
attract the attention of readers. Everybody 
doesn't see what you print the first time it 
appears. More will notice your copy the 
second day, a great many more at the end 
of a month. 

You cannot expect to win the confidence 
of the community to the same degree that 
other men have obtained it, without taking 
pretty much the same length of time that 
they did. But you can cut short the period 
between your introduction to your reader 
and his introduction to your counters, by 
spending more effort in preparing your 
copy and displaying a greater amount of 
convincingness. 

You mustn't act like the little girl who 
sowed a garden and came out the next 
day expecting to find it in full bloom. Her 
father had to explain to her that plants 
require roots and that, although she could 
not see what was going on, the seeds were 
doing their most important work just before 
the flowers showed above ground. 

So advertising is doing its most important 



24 The Man who Retreats 

work before the big results eventuate, and 
to abandon the money which has been 
invested just before results arrive, is not 
only foolish but childish. It would be just 
as logical for a farmer to desert his fields 
because he cannot harvest his corn a week 
after he planted it. 

Advertising does not require faith — 
merely common sense. If it is begun in 
doubt and relinquished before normal re- 
sults can be reasonably looked for, the fault 
does not lie with the newspaper nor with 
publicity — the blame is solely on the head 
of the coward who retreated before he was 
defeated. 



"The Dollar that Can't 
be Spent 



The Dollar that 
Can't be Spent 



EVERY dollar spent in advertising is 
not only a seed dollar which produces 
a profit for the merchant, but is ac- 
tually retained by him even after he has 
paid it to the publisher. 

Advertising creates a good will equal to 
the cost of the publicity. 

Advertising really costs nothing. While it 
uses funds it does not use them up. It helps 
the founder of a business to grow rich and 
then keeps his business alive after his death. 

It eliminates the personal equation. It 
perpetuates confidence in the store and makes 
it possible for a merchant to withdraw from 
business without having the profits of the 
business withdrawn from him. It changes 
a name to an institution — an institution 
which will survive its builder. 



28 Dollar that Can't be Spent 

It is really an insurance policy which 
costs nothing — pays a premium each year 
instead of calling for one and renders it 
possible to change the entire personnel of a 
business without disturbing its prosperity. 

Advertising renders the business stronger 
than the man — independent of his pres- 
ence. It permanentizes systems of mer- 
chandising, the track of which is left for 
others to follow. 

A business which is not advertised must 
rely upon the personality of its proprietor, 
and personality in business is a decreasing 
factor. The public does not want to know 
the man who owns the store — it isn't inter- 
ested in him but in his goods. When an un- 
advertised business is sold it is only worth as 
much as its stock of goods and its fixtures. 
There is no good will to be paid for — it does 
not exist — it has not been created. The name 
over the door means nothing except to the 
limited stream of people from the immedi- 
ate neighborhood, any of whom could tell 
you more about some store ten miles away 
which has regularly delivered its shop news 
to their breakfast table. 



Dollar that Can't be Spent 29 

It is as shortsighted for a man to build a 
business which dies with his death or ceases 
with his inaction, as it is unfair for him not 
to provide for the continuance of its income 
to his family. 



The Pass of Thermopylae 



The Pass of 
Thermopylae 



XERXES once led a million soldiers 
out of Persia in an effort to capture 
Greece, but his invasion failed 
utterly, because a Spartan captain had en- 
trenched a hundred men in a narrow moun- 
tain pass, which controlled the road into 
Lacedaemon. The man who was first on the 
ground had the advantage. 

Advertising is full of opportunities for 
men who are first on the ground. 

There are hundreds of advertising passes 
waiting for some one to occupy them. The 
first man who realizes that his line will be 
helped by publicity, has a tremendous op- 
portunity. He can gain an advantage over 
his competitors that they can never possess. 
Those who follow him must spend more 
money to equal his returns. They must not 



34 The Pass of Thermopylae 

only invest as much, to get as much, but 
they must as well, spend an extra sum to 
counteract the influence that he has already 
established in the community. 

Whatever men sell, whether it is actual 
merchandise or brain vibrations, can be 
more easily sold with the aid of advertising. 
Not one half of the businesses which should 
be exploited are appearing in the news- 
papers. Trade grows as reputation grows 
and advertising spreads reputation. 

If you are engaged in a line which is 
waiting for an advertising pioneer, realize 
what a wonderful chance you have of being 
the first of your kind to appeal directly to 
the public. You stand a better chance of 
leadership than those who have handicapped 
their strength, by permitting you to get on 
the ground before they could outstrip you. 
You gain a prestige that those who follow 
you, must spend more money to counteract. 

If your particular line is similar to some 
other trade or business which has already 
been introduced to the reading public, it's 
up to you to start in right now and join your 
competitors in contesting for the attention 



The Pass of Thermopylae 35 

of the community. The longer you delay 
the more you decrease your chances of 
surviving. Every man who outstrips you 
is another opponent, who must be met and 
grappled with, for the right of way. 



The Perambulating Showcase 



% 



The Perambulating 
Showcase 



THE newspaper is a huge shop window, 
carried about the city and delivered 
daily into hundreds of thousands 
of homes, to be examined at the leisure of 
the reader. This shop window is unlike the 
actual plate glass showcase only in one 
respect — it makes display of descriptions 
instead of articles. 

You have often been impressed by the 
difference between the decorations of two 
window-trimmers, each of whom employed 
the same materials for his work. The one 
drew your attention and held it by the grace 
and cleverness and art manifested in his 
display. The other realized so little of the 
possibilities in the materials placed at his 
disposal, that unless some one called your 



40 The Perambulating Showcase 

attention to his mediocrities you would 
have gone on unconscious of their existence. 

An advertiser must know that he gets 
his results in accordance with the skill ex- 
ercised in preparing his verbal displays. 
He must make people stop and pause. His 
copy has to stand out. 

He must not only make a show of things 
that are attractive to the eye but are 
attractive to the people's needs, as well. 

The window-trimmer must not make the 
mistake of thinking that the showiest stocks 
are the most salable. The advertiser must 
not make the mistake of thinking that the 
showiest words are the most clinching. 

Windows are too few in number to be 
used with indiscretion. The good merchant 
puts those goods back of his plate glass 
which nine people out of ten will want, once 
they have seen them. 

The good advertiser tells about goods 
which nine readers out of ten will buy, if 
they can be convinced. 

Newspaper space itself is only the win- 
dow, just as the showcase is but a frame 
for merchandise pictures. A window on a 



The Perambulating Showcase 41 

crowded street, in the best neighborhood, 
where prosperous persons pass continually, 
is more desirable, than one in a cheap, 
sparsely settled neighborhood. An adver- 
tisement in a newspaper with the most 
readers and the most prosperous ones, pos- 
sesses a great advantage over the same copy, 
in a medium circulating among persons who 
possess less means. It would be foolish for 
a shop to build its windows in an alley- 
way — and just as much so to put its 
advertising into newspapers which are 
distributed among "alley-dwellers." 



How Alexander Untied the 
Knot 



How Alexander Untied 
the Knot 



ALEXANDER the Great was being 
shown the Gordian Knot. "It 
can't be untied/' they told him; 
"every man who tried to do so, failed." 

But Alexander was not discouraged be- 
cause the rest had flunked. He simply 
realized that he would have to go at it in 
a different way. And instead of wasting 
time with his fingers, he drew his sword and 
slashed it apart. 

Every day a great business general is 
shown some knot which has proven too 
much for his competitors, and he succeeds, 
because he finds a way to cut it. The 
fumbler has no show so long as there is a 
brother merchant who doesn't waste time 
trying to accomplish the impossible — who 
takes lessons from the failures about him 



46 How the Knot TVas Untied 

and avoids the methods which were their 
downfall. 

The knottiest problems in trade are: 

1 — The problem of location. 

2 — The problem of getting the crowds. 

5 — The problem of keeping the crowds. 

4 — The problem of minimizing fixed 
expenses. 

5 — The problem of creating a valuable 
good will. 

None of these knots is going to be untied 
by fumbling fingers. They are too com- 
plicated. They're all inextricably involved 
— so twisted and entangled that they can't 
be solved singly — like the Gordian knot 
they must be cut through at one stroke. And 
you can't cut the knot with anything but 
advertising — because : 

1 — A store that is constantly before the 
people makes its own neighborhood. 

2 — Crowds can be brought from anywhere 
by daily advertising. 

3 — Customers can always be held by 
inducements. 



How the Knot IVas Untied 47 

4. — Fixed expenses can only be reduced 
by increasing the volume of sales. 

5 — Good will can only be created through 
publicity. 

Advertising is breeding new giants every 
year and making them more powerful every 
hour. Publicity is the sustaining food of a 
powerful store and the only strengthening 
nourishment for a weak one. The retailer 
who delays his entry into advertising must 
pay the penalty of his procrastination by 
facing more giant competitors as each 
month of opportunity slips by. 

Personal ability as a close purchaser and 
as a clever seller, doesn't count for a hang, 
so long as other men are equally well posted 
and wear the sword of publicity to boot. 
They are able to tie your business into con- 
stantly closer knots, while you cannot 
retaliate, because there is no knot which 
their advertising cannot cut for them. 

Yesterday you lost a customer — today 
they took one — tomorrow they'll get 
another. You cannot cope with their com- 
petition because you haven't the weapon 



48 How the Knot Was Untied 

with which to oppose it. You can't untie 
your Gordian knot because it can't be 
untied — youVe got to cut it. 

You must become an advertiser or you 
must pay the penalty of incompetence. 

You not only require the newspaper to 
fight for a more hopeful tomorrow, but 
to keep today s situation from becoming 
hopeless. 



If It Fits You, Wear 
this Cap 



If It Fits Tou, Wear 
this Cap 



ADVERTISING isn't a crucible with 
which lazy, bigoted and incapable 
merchants can turn incompetency 
into success — but one into which brains and 
tenacity and courage can be poured and 
changed into dollars. It is only a short 
cut across the fields — not a moving plat- 
form. You can't "get there" without 
"going some." 

It's a game in which the worker — not 
the shirker — gets rich. 

By its measurement every man stands 
for what he is and for what he does, not 
for what he was and what he did. 

Every day in the advertising world is 
another day and has to be taken care of 
with the same energy as its yesterday. 

The quitter cant survive where the plugger 
has the ghost of a chance. 



52 If It Fits JVear this Cap 

Advertising doesn't take the place of 
business talent or business management. 
It simply tells what a business is and how 
it is managed. The snob whose father 
created and who is content to live on what 
was handed to him, can't stand up against 
the man who knows he must build for 
. himself. 

What makes you think that you are en- 
titled to prosper as well as a competitor 
who works twice as hard for his prosperity? 
. Why should as many people deal at your 
store, as patronize a shop that makes an 
endeavor to get their trade and shows them 
that it is worth while to come to its doors ? 

Why should a newspaper send as many 
customers to you, in half the time it took to 
fill an establishment which advertised twice 
as long and paid twice as much for its 
publicity ? 

This is the day when the best man wins — 
after he proves that he is the best man — 
when the best store wins, when it has shown 
that it is the best store — when the best 
goods win, after they've been demonstrated 
to be the best goods. 



If It Fits Wear this Cap 53 

If you want the plum you can't get it by 
lying under the tree with your mouth open 
waiting for it to drop — too many other 
men are willing to climb out on the limb 
and risk their necks in their eagerness to 
get it away from you. 

It is a mans game — this advertising — 
just hanging on and tugging and straining 
all the time to get and keep ahead. It is 
the finite expression of the law of Competi- 
tion, which sits in blind-folded justice over 
the markets of the world. 



You Must Irrigate Your 
Neighborhood 



Tou Must Irrigate 
Tour Neighborhood 



HALF a century ago there were ten 
million acres of land, within a 
thousand miles of Chicago, upon 
which not even a blade of grass would grow. 
Today upon these very deserts are wonder- 
ful orchards and tremendous wheatfields. 
The soil itself was full of possibilities. What 
the land needed was water. In time there 
came farmers who knew that they could not 
expect the streams to come to them, and so 
they dug ditches and led the water to their 
properties from the surrounding rivers and 
lakes ; they tilled the earth with their brains 
as well as their plows — they became rich 
through irrigation. 

Advertising has made thousands of men 
rich, just because they recognized the possi- 
bilities of utilizing the newspapers to bring 



58 Must Irrigate Neighborhood 

streams of buyers into neighborhoods that 
could be made busy locations by irrigation 
— by drawing people from other sections. 

The successful retailer is the man who 
keeps the stream of purchasers coming his 
way. It isn't the spot itself that makes 
the store pay — it's the man who makes the 
spot pay. Centers of trade are not selected 
by the public — they are created by the 
force which controls the public — the news- 
papers. 

New neighborhoods for business are being 
constantly built up by men who have 
located themselves in streets which they 
have changed from deserted by-ways into 
teeming, jostling thoroughfares, through 
advertising irrigation. 

The storekeeper who whines that his 
neighborhood holds him back is squinting 
at the truth — he is hurting the neighborhood. 

If it lacks streams of buyers, he can 
easily enough secure them by reaching out 
through the columns of the daily and in- 
ducing people from other sections to come 
to him. Every time he influences a cus- 
tomer of a competitor he is not only irrigat- 



Must Irrigate Neighborhood 59 

ing his own field but is diverting the 
streams upon which a non-advertising mer- 
chant depends for existence. Men and 
women who live next door to a shop that 
does not plead for their custom will even- 
tually be drawn to an establishment miles 
away because they have been made to 
believe in some advantage to be gained 
thereby. 

The circulation of every daily is nothing 
less than a reservoir of buyers, from which 
shoppers stream in the direction that prom- 
ises the most value for the least money. 

The magic development of the desert 
lands, has its parallel in merchandising of 
men who consider the newspaper an irrigat- 
ing power which can make two customers 
grow where one grew before. 



Cato's Follow-up System 



Catds Follow-up 
System 



IF a man lambasted you on the eye and 
walked away and waited a week be- 
fore he repeated the performance, he 
wouldn't hurt you very badly. Between 
attacks you would have an opportunity to 
recover from the effect of the first blow. 

But if he smashed you and kept mauling, 
each impact of his fist would find you less 
able to stand the hammering, and a half- 
dozen jabs would probably knock you down. 

Now advertising is, after all, a matter of 
hitting the eye of the public. If you allow too 
great an interval to elapse between in- 
sertions of copy the effect of the first ad- 
vertisement will have worn away by the 
time you hit again. You may continue 
your scattered talks over a stretch of years, 
but you will not derive the same benefit 



64 Cat(?s Follow-up System 

that would result from a greater concentra- 
tion. In other words, by appearing in print 
every day, you are able to get the bene- 
fit of the impression created the *day 
before, and as each piece of copy makes its 
appearance, the result of your publicity on 
the reader's mind is more pronounced — 
you musn't stop short of a knock-down 
impression. 

Persistence is the foundation of advertis- 
ing success. Regularity of insertion is just 
as important as clever phrasing. The man 
who hangs on is the man who wins out. 
Cato the Elder is an example to every 
merchant who uses the newspapers and 
should be an inspiration to every store- 
keeper who does not. For twenty years he 
arose daily in the Roman senate and cried 
out for the destruction of Carthage. In the 
beginning he found his conferees very un- 
responsive. But he kept on every day, 
month after month and year after year, 
sinking into the minds of all the necessity 
of destroying Carthage, until he set all the 
senate thinking upon the subject and in the 
end Rome sent an army across the Mediter- 



Catd* s Follow-up System 65 

ranean and ended the reign of the Hannibals 
and Hamilcars over northern Africa. The 
persistent utterances of a single man did it. 
The history of every mercantile success 
is parallel. The advertiser who does not let 
a day slip by without having his say, is 
bound to be heard and have his influence 
felt. Every insertion of copy brings stronger 
returns, because it has the benefit of 
what has been said before, until the pub- 
lic's attention is like an eye that has been 
so repeatedly struck, that the least touch 
of suggestion will feel like a blow. 



How to Write Retail 
Advertising Copy 



How to IVrite Retail 
Advertising Copy 



A SKILLED layer of mosaics works 
with small fragments of stone — 
they fit into more places than the 
larger chunks. 

The skilled advertiser works with small 
words — they fit into more minds than big 
phrases. 

The simpler the language the greater 
certainty that it will be understood by 
the least intelligent reader. 

The construction engineer plans his road- 
bed where there is a minimum of grade — 
he works along the lines of least resistance. 

The advertisement which runs into moun- 
tainous style is badly surveyed — all minds 
are not built for high grade thinking. 

Advertising must be simple. When it is 
tricked out with the jewelry and silks of 



jo Retail Advertising 

literary expression, it looks as much out of 
place as a ball dress at the breakfast table! 

The buying public is only interested in 
facts. People read advertisements to find 
out what you have to sell. 

The advertiser who can fire the most facts 
in the shortest time gets the most returns. 
Blank cartridges make noise but they do not 
hit — blank talk, however clever, is only 
wasted space. 

You force your salesmen to keep to solid 
facts — you don't allow them to sell muslin 
with quotations from Omar or trousers with 
excerpts from Marie Corelli. You must 
not tolerate in your printed selling talk 
anything that you are not willing to 
countenance in personal salesmanship. 

Cut out clever phrases if they are inserted 
to the sacrifice of clear explanations — 
write copy as you talk. Only be more brief. 
Publicity is costlier than conversation — 
ranging in price downward from J^ioa line; 
talk is not cheap but the most expensive 
commodity in the world. 

Sketch in your ad to the stenographer. 
Then you will be so busy "saying it" that 



Retail Advertising 7/ 

you will not have time to bother about the 
gewgaws of writing. Afterwards take the 
typewritten manuscript and cut out every 
word and every line that can be erased 
without omitting an important detail. 
What remains in the end is all that really 
counted in the beginning. 

Cultivate brevity and simplicity. " Savon 
Fran^ais" may look smarter, but more 
people will understand "French Soap." 
Sir Isaac Newton's explanation of gravita- 
tion covers six pages but the schoolboy's 
terse and homely "What goes up must 
come down" clinches the whole thing in 
six words. 

Indefinite talk wastes space. It is not 
100% productive. The copy that omits 
prices sacrifices half its pulling power — 
it has a tendency to bring lookers instead 
of buyers. It often creates false impressions. 
Some people are bound to conceive the idea 
that the goods are higher priced than in 
reality — others, by the same token, are 
just as likely to infer that the prices are 
lower and go away thinking that you have 
exaggerated your statements. 



7 f 2 Retail Advertising 

The reader must be searched out by the 
copy. Big space is cheapest because it 
doesnt waste a single eye. Publicity must 
be on the offensive. There are far too many 
advertisers who keep their lights on top of 
their bushel — the average citizen hasnt 
time to overturn your bushel. 

Small space is expensive. Like a one- 
Hake snowstorm, there is not enough of it 
to lay. 

Space is a comparative matter after all. 
It is not a case of how much is used as how 
it is used. The passengers on the limited 
express may realize that Jones has tacked 
a twelve-inch shingle on every post and 
fence for a stretch of five miles, but they 
are going too fast to make out what the 
shingles say, yet the two feet letters of 
Brown's big bulletin board on top of the 
hill leap at them before they have a chance 
to dodge it. And at that it doesn't cost 
nearly so much as the sum total of Jones' 
dinky display. 

Just so advertisements attractively dis- 
played every day or every other day for 
a year in one big newspaper, will find the 



Retail Advertising 73 

eye of all readers, no matter how rapidly 
they may be "going" through the advertis- 
ing pages and produce more results than a 
dozen piking pieces of copy scattered through 
half a dozen dailies. 



The Difference between Amusing 
and Convincing 



The Difference between 
Amusing and Convincing 



AN advertiser must realize that there 
is a vast difference between amus- 
ing people and convincing them. 
It does not pay to be "smart" at the line 
rate of the average first class daily. I sup- 
pose that I could draw the attention of 
everybody on the street by painting half 
of my face red and donning a suit of motley. 
I might have a sincere purpose in wishing 
to attract the crowd, but I would be deluding 
myself if I mistook the nature of their 
attention. 

The new advertiser is especially prone to 
misjudge between amusing and convincing 
copy. A humorous picture may catch the 
eyes of every reader, but it won't pay as 
well as an illustration of some piece of mer- 
chandise which will strike the eye of every 



j8 Amusing and Convincing 

buyer. Merchants secure varying results 
from the same advertising space. The 
publisher delivers to each the same quality of 
readers, but the advertiser who plants 
flippancy in the minds of the community 
won't attain the benefit that is secured 
by the merchant who imprints clinching 
arguments there. 

Always remember that the advertising 
sections of newspapers are no different 
than farming lands. And it is as preposter- 
ous to hold the publisher responsible for 
the outcome of unintelligent copy as it 
would be unjust to blame the soil for bad 
seed and poor culture. Every advertiser 
gets exactly the same number of readers from 
a publisher and the same readers — after 
that it's up to him — the results fluctuate 
in accordance with the intelligence and the 
pulling power of the copy which is inserted. 



Some Dorfts when Tou 
Do Advertise 



Some Dorits when Vou 
Do Advertise 



THE price of the gun never hits the 
bull's eye. 
And the bang seldom rattles the 
bells. 
It's the hand on the trigger that cuts the real 

figger. 
The aim's what amounts — that's what 

makes record counts — 
Are you hitting or just wasting shells? 

Dont forget that the man who writes 
your copy is the man who aims your policy. 

When you stop to reflect what your 
space costs and that the wrong talk is just 
noise — bang without biff — you must see 
the necessity and sanity of putting the 
right man behind the gun. 

Dont tolerate an ambition on your ad- 



82 Donfs when Tou Advertise 

man's part to indulge in a lurking desire 
to be a literary light. 

People read his advertising to discover 
what your buyers have just brought from 
the market and what you are asking for 
"O. N. T." They buy the newspaper for 
information and recreation and are satisfied 
with the degree of poetry and persiflage 
dished up in its reading columns. 

Dont exaggerate. Poetic licenses are not 
valid in business prose. The American 
people dont want to be humbugged and the 
merchant who figures upon too many fools, 
finds himself looking into a mirror, usually 
about a half hour after the sheriff has come 
to look over the premises. 

Dont imitate. Advertising is a special 
measure garment. Businesses are not built 
in ready-made sizes. Copy which fits some- 
body else's selling plans, won't fit your store 
without sagging at the chest or riding up at 
the collar. Duplicated argument and dupli- 
cated results are not twins. Your policy of 
publicity must be specially measured from 
your policy of merchandising. 

Don't put your advertising in charge of 



Dorfts when Tou Advertise 83 

an amateur. Let somebody else stand the 
expense of his educational blunders. Re- 
member you are making a plea before the 
bar of public confidence. Your ad-writer 
is an advocate. Like a bad lawyer, he can 
lose a good case by not making the most of 
the facts at hand. 

Dont get the "sales" habit. "Sales" are 
stimulants. When held too often their effect 
is weakening. The merchant who con- 
tinually yells "bargain" is like the old hen 
who was always crying "fox." When the 
real article did come along, none of her 
chicks believed it. 

Dont use fine print. Make it easy for the 
reader to find out about your business. 
There are ten million pairs of eyeglasses 
worn in America, and every owner of them 
buys something. 

And Dont start unless you mean to stick. 
The patron saint of the successful advertiser 
hates a quitter. 



The Doctor whose Patients 
Hang On 



The Doctor whose 
Patients Hang On 



OUT in China all things are not topsy- 
turvy. Physicians are paid for 
keeping people well and when their 
patients fall ill, their weekly remittances are 
stopped. The Chinese judge a medical man 
not by the number of years he lives, but by 
the length of time his patrons survive. 

An advertising medium must be judged 
in the same way. The fact that it has age 
to its credit isn't so important as the age 
of its advertising patronage. Whenever a 
daily continues to display the store talk of 
the same establishment year after year, it's 
a pretty sure sign that the merchant has 
made money out of that newspaper, because 
no publication can continue to be a losing 
investment to its customers over a stretch 



88 Doctor's Patients Hang On 

of time, without the fact being discovered. 
And when a newspaper is not only able to 
boast of an honor roll of stores that have 
continued to appear in its pages for a 
stretch of decades, but at the same time 
demonstrates that it carries more business 
than its competitors, it has proven its su- 
periority as plainly as a mountain peak 
which rises above its fellows. 

The combination of stability and progress 
is the strongest virtue that a newspaper 
can possess. Only the fit survive — reputa- 
tion is a difficult thing to get and a harder 
thing to hold — it takes merit to earn it and 
character to maintain it. There is a vast 
difference between fame and notoriety, and 
just as much difference between a famous 
newspaper and a notorious one. 

Just as a manufacturer is always eager 
to install his choicest stocks in a store which 
has earned the respect of the community, 
just so a retailer should be anxious to insert 
his name in a newspaper which has earned 
the respect of its readers. The manufacturer 
feels that he will receive a square deal from 
a store which has age to its credit. He can 



Doctor's Patients Hang On 89 

expect as much from a newspaper which is 
a credit to its age ! 

The newspaper which outlives the rest 
does so because it was best fitted to — it 
had to earn the confidence of its readers — 
and keep it. It had to be a better newspaper 
than any other and better newspapers go to 
the homes of better buyers. Every bit of 
its circulation has the element of quality 
and staying power. And it is the respectable \ 
home-loving element of every community — 
not the touts and the gamblers — toward 
which the merchant must look for his busi- 
ness vertebrae — he cannot find buyers unless 
he uses the newspaper that enters their 
homes. And when he does enter their 
homes he must not confuse the sheet that 
comes in the back gate with the newspaper 
that is delivered at the front door. 



The Horse that Drew 
the Load 



The Horse that Drew 
the Load 



AMOVING van came rolling down 
the street the other day with a 
big spirited Percheron in the center 
and two wretched nags on either side. The 
Percheron was doing all the work, and it 
seemed that he would have got along far 
better in single harness, than he man- 
aged with his inferior mates retarding his 
speed. 

The advertiser who selects a group of 
newspapers usually harnesses two lame 
propositions to every pulling newspaper 
on his list, and just as the van driver prob- 
ably dealt out an equal portion of feed to 
each of his animals, just so many a merchant 
is paying practically the same rate to a 
weak daily, that he is allowing the sturdy 
profitable sheet. 



94 Horse that Drew the Load 

Unfortunately the accepted custom of 
inserting the same advertisement in every 
paper acts to the distinct disadvantage of 
the meritorious medium. The advertiser 
charges the sum total of his expense against 
the sum total of his returns, and thereby 
does himself and the best puller an injustice, 
by crediting the less productive sheets 
with results that they have not earned. 

It's the pulling power of the newspaper 
as well as the horse that proves its value, 
and if advertisers were as level headed as 
they should be, they would take the trouble 
to put every daily in which they advertise 
on trial for at least a month and advertise 
a different department or article in each, 
carefully tabulating the returns. If this 
were done, fifty per cent of the advertising 
now carried in weaker newspapers would be 
withdrawn and the patronage of the stronger 
sheets would advance in that proportion. 

There are newspapers in many a city thai 
are, single handed, able to build up busi- 
nesses. Their circulation is solid muscle 
and sinew — all pull. It isn't the number 
of copies printed but the number of copies 



Horse that Drew the Load 95 

that reach the hands of buyers — it isn't 
the number of readers but the number of 
readers with money to spend — it isn't the 
bulk of a circulation but the amount of the 
circulation which is available to the ad- 
vertiser — it isn't fat but brawn — that tell 
in the long run. 

There are certain earmarks that indicate 
these strengths and weaknesses. They are 
as plain to the observing eye as the signs 
of the woods are significant to the trapper. 
The news columns tell you what you can 
expect out of the advertising columns. A 
newspaper always finds the class of readers 
to which it is edited. When its mental tone 
is low and its moral tone is careless depend 
upon it — the readers match the medium. 

No gun can hit a target outside of its 
range. No newspaper can aim its policy 
in one direction and score in another. No 
advertiser can find a different class of men 
and women than the publisher has found for 
himself. He is judged by the company 
he keeps. // he lies down with dogs he will 
arise with fleas. 



The Cellar Hole and the 
Sewer Hole 



The Cellar Hole and the 
Sewer Hole 



A COAL cart stopped before an office 
building in Washington and the 
driver dismounted, removed the 
cover from a manhole, ran out his chute, 
and proceeded to empty the load. An old 
negro strolled over and stood watching 
him. Suddenly the black man glanced 
down and immediately burst into a fit of 
uncontrollable laughter, which continued 
for several minutes. The cart driver looked 
at him in amusement. "Say, Uncle/' he 
asked, "do you always laugh when you 
see coal going into a cellar?" The negro 
sputtered around for a few moments and 
then holding his hands to his aching sides 
managed to say, "No, sah> but I jest busts 
when I sees it goin down a sewer. " 



wo Cellar Hole and Sewer Hole 

The advertiser who displays lack of 
judgment in selecting the newspapers which 
carry his copy often confuses the sewer and 
the cellar. 

All the money that is put into newspapers 
isn't taken out again, by any means. The 
fact that all dailies possess a certain phys- 
ical likeness, doesn't necessarily signify a 
similarity in character, and it's character 
in a newspaper that brings returns. The 
editor who conducts a journalistic sewer, 
finds a different class of readers than the 
publisher who respects himself enough to 
respect his readers. 

What goes into a newspaper largely de- 
termines the class of homes into which the 
newspaper goes. An irresponsible, scandal- 
mongering, muck-raking sheet is certainly 
not supported by the buying classes of 
people. It may be perused by thousands 
of readers, but such readers are seldom 
purchasers of advertised goods. 

It's the clean-cut, steady, normal-minded 
citizens who form the bone and sinew and 
muscle of the community. It's the sane, 
self-respecting, dependable newspaper that 



Cellar Hole and Sewer Hole 101 

enters their homes and it's the home sale 
that indicates the strength of an advertising 
medium. 

No clean-minded father of a family wishes 
to have his wife and children brought in 
contact with the most maudlin and banal 
phases of life. He defends them from the 
sensational editor and the unpleasant adver- 
tiser. He subscribes to a newspaper which 
he does not fear to leave about the house. 

Therefore, the respectable newspaper can 
always be counted upon to produce more 
sales than one which may even own a larger 
circulation but whose distribution is in ten 
editions among unprofitable citizens. 

You can no more expect to sell goods to 
people who haven t money, than you can hope 
to pluck oysters from rose-bushes. 

It isn't the number of readers reached, but 
the number of readers whose purses can be 
reached, that constitutes the value of cir- 
culation. It's one thing to arouse their 
attention, but it's a far different thing to 
get their money. The mind may be willing, 
but the pocketbook may be weak. 

If you had the choice of a thousand acres 



102 Cellar Hole and Sewer Hole 

of desert land or a hundred acres of oasis, 
you'd select the fertile spot, realizing that 
the larger tract had less value because it 
would be less productive. 

The advertiser who really understands 
how he is spending his money, takes care 
that he is not pouring his money into 
deserts and sewers. 



The Neighborhood of 
Your Advertising 



The Neighborhood 



CIRCULATION is a commodity which 
must be bought with the same com- 
mon sense used in selecting potatoes, 
cloth and real estate. It can be measured 
and weighed — it is merchandise with a 
provable value. It varies just as much as 
the grocer's green stuff, the tailor's fabrics 
and the lots of the real estate man. 

Your cook refuses to accept green and 
rotten tomatoes at the price of perfect ones. 
She does not calculate the number of vege- 
tables that are delivered to her, but those 
that she can use. When your wife selects 
a piece of cloth she first makes sure that it 
will serve the purpose she has in view. 
When you buy a piece of property you con- 
sider the neighborhood as well as the ground. 
Just so when you buy advertising you 



io6 The Neighborhood 

must find out how much of the circulation 
you can use. You must judge the neigh- 
borhoods where your copy will be read, with 
the same thoughtfulness that you devoted 
to selecting the spot where your goods are 
sold. 

A dealer in precious stones would be 
foolish to open up in a tenement district, 
and equally short-sighted, to tell about his 
jewelry in a newspaper largely distributed 
there. Out of ten thousand men and 
women who might see what he had to say 
not ten of them could afford to buy his goods. 
These ten thousand readers would be mass 
without muscle. He could make them 
willing to do business with him, but their 
incomes wouldn't let them become customers. 

One of the greatest mistakes in publicity 
is to drop your lines where the fish cant 
take your bait. 

Circulation is, as you see, a very interest- 
ing subject, but very few people know any- 
thing about it. It would surprise you to 
know that this ignorance often extends to 
the business offices of newspapers. I have 
known publishers to continually mistake 



The Neighborhood 107 

the class of their readers and have met hun- 
dreds of them who had the most fantastic 
ideas upon the figures of their circulation. 

While I would not be so harsh as to 
accuse them of anything more than being 
mistaken, none the less their tendency to 
infect others with this misinformation 
renders it extremely advisable for you to 
become a member of the Missouri society 
— and "be shown. " 

Don't rely solely on circulation state- 
ments. You don't understand the tricks 
in their making. Make the newspaper 
which carries your advertisement show you 
the list of its advertisers. A newspaper 
which prints the most advertising, month 
after month, year after year, is always the 
best medium. This is equally true in New 
York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Kenosha and 
Walla Walla. 



The Mistake of the Big Steak 



The Mistake of the Big 
Steak 



WATCH out for waste in circulation. 
Find out where your story is go- 
ing to be read. Don't pay for 
planting the seed of publicity in a spot where 
you are not going to harvest the results. 

The manufacturer of soap who has his 
goods on sale from Oskaloosa to Timbuctoo 
doesn't care how widely a newspaper circula- 
tion is scattered. Whoever reads about his 
product is near to some store or other where 
it is sold — but you have just one store. 

Buying advertising circulation is very 
much like ordering a steak — if the waiter 
brings you a porter-house twice as big as 
your digestion can handle, you've paid 
twice as much as the steak was worth to 
you, even if it is worth the price to the 
restaurant man. 



ii2 Mistake of the Big Steak 

You derive your profit not from the cir- 
culation that your advertisement gets, but 
from circulation that gets people to buy. 

If two newspapers offer you their columns 
and one shows a distribution almost en- 
tirely within the city and in towns that 
rely upon your city for buying facilities, 
your business can digest all of its influence. 
If the other has as much circulation, but 
only one third of it is in local territory, mere 
bulk cannot establish its value to you — 
it's another case of the big steak — you pay 
for more than you can digest. That part 
of its influence which is concentrated where 
men and women can't get your goods after 
you get their attention, is sheer waste. 

By dividing the number of copies he 
prints into his line rate, a publisher may 
fallaciously demonstrate to you that his 
space is sold as low as that of his stronger 
competitors, but if half his circulation is 
too far away to bring buyers, his real rate 
is double what it seems. He is like the 
butcher who weighs in all the bone and sinew 
and fat and charges you as much for the 
waste as he does for the meat. 



The Omelette Souffle 



The Omelette Souffle 



THERE is a vast distinction between 
distribution for the sake of increas- 
ing the circulation figures and dis- 
tribution for the sake of increasing the 
number of advertising responses. 

There is a difference between a circulation 
which strikes the same reader several times 
in the same day and the circulation which 
does not repeat the individual. There is a 
difference between circulation which is con- 
centrated into an area from which every 
reader can be expected to come to your 
establishment, if you can interest him, and a 
circulation that spreads over half a dozen 
states and shows its greatest volume in 
territory so far from your establishment 
that you can't get a buyer out of ten 
thousand readers. 



n6 The Omelette Souffle 

YouVe got to weigh and measure all 
these things when you weigh and measure 
circulation figures. It isn't the number of 
copies printed, but the number of copies 
sold — not the number of papers distributed, 
but the number of papers distributed in 
responsive territory — not the number of 
readers reached, but the number of readers 
who have the price to buy what you want 
to sell — that determine the value of 
circulation to you. 

You can take a single egg and whip it 
into an omelette souffle which seems to be a 
whole plateful, but the extra bulk is just 
hot air and sugar — the change in form has 
not increased the amount of egg substance 
and it's the substance in circulation, just as 
it is the nutrition in the egg, that counts. 



'M 22 1913 



